In the last two decades therapeutic ultrasound has received attention from the medical community as a tool to relieve arthritis, to improve rehabilitation, and to enhance wound healing processes. Ultrasound at higher energies plays a role in surgical applications such as prostate therapy, and brain tumor and cardiac tissue ablation. Therapeutic ultrasound and its effects on tissue properties are currently being studied in research. For example, researchers are assessing the ability of ultrasound for large molecule transdermal drug delivery, in targeted chemotherapy delivery to brain cancer, and in cellular gene transfer applications. The potential of a combined portable ultrasound imaging and therapeutic system is currently being studied to great lengths for military, industrial, and medical applications. Despite the widespread use of ultrasound, the basic hardware has not changed significantly in the past 50 years.
The ability to drive ultrasound transducers for therapeutic, surgical, mechanical, military, and other applications is of importance to medical doctors and acoustical engineers and professionals in numerous additional fields.